Chapter Text
"Listen, dude, you have to check this out."
“Yeah, right,” Jeongguk scoffs, resolutely staring at his computer, ignoring both Taehyung and the mountainful of drafts sitting on his desk corner. “Why would I waste time investigating something that clearly doesn’t exist?”
Taehyung frowns and rolls closer to him on his wheelie chair, whose telltale squeak makes Jungkook stiffen with irritation.
“What are these pictures, then?” Taehyung retorts triumphantly, tossing an envelope onto Jeongguk’s desk with a bit of dramatic flair.
Jeongguk rolls his eyes. Another day, another conspiracy theory. Taeyhyung’s blind faith in the occult and magic would never cease to amuse him. (Well, not so much ‘amuse’ as ‘irrationally piss him off.’)
Without even looking at the pictures, Jeongguk takes a deep breath and turns to stare Taehyung dead in the eye. “Did you take these photographs yourself?”
“...Well, no.”
“Then they could be doctored. Fake. Special effects. CGI. There are quite literally infinite possibilities, but I can tell you one thing for sure: witches do not exist.”
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*·ꕥ·*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
Okay, so maybe witches exist.
Jeongguk has come to this particular revelation while magically bound to a chair, staring at the most attractive man he has ever seen in his life - albeit a glowing one. Glowing as in both the ‘ethereal beauty’ way and quite literally. Twisted markings of glowing gold ribbons snake their way up his lightly toned arms, seemingly embedded into his skin. Either this guy was a genius cosplayer, or everything Jeongguk has ever known about reality has been painfully, upsettingly, false.
It’s a strange situation to be in, of course, but clearly this is exactly what he gets for investigating a bogus claim. Or, well, maybe not-so-bogus, but the scenario is so unreal that Jeongguk still isn’t quite sure that he hasn’t just passed out or that he’s just currently experiencing an incredibly realistic hallucination.
It hadn’t helped that Taehyung had been relentless, presenting all sorts of witness reports swearing by this guy. One Kim Seokjin, a fortune-teller, apparently, dime-a-dozen. Jeongguk had thought about writing exposés fortune tellers before, and of course they were all scams, each and every one, but they had never really been worth looking into. After all, a magazine article would hardly be enough to dissuade the types of people who went there in the first place.
But this guy in particular was receiving immensely high praise - high enough that it even reached Jeongguk from sources other than Taehyung. “Accurate down to the date, time, and even name,” one customer had said. “He helped me meet the love of my life,” claimed another.
All a bunch of baloney, of course, perhaps with a pinch of good luck, but after Taehyung’s third week straight of not-so-subtle hint-dropping about this Kim Seokjin, Jeongguk had just decided to kick the bucket and finally look into the guy.
Jeongguk had arranged an appointment with Kim Seokjin, oddly impressed by the professionalism he was received with. The good impression didn’t last for long, though, once he met the guy. Apart from his stunningly good looks, it was clear from his tone that he fully believed in his so-called “powers,” speaking his predictions with a certainty Jeongguk had yet to hear from anyone in his entire life.
Jeongguk, of course, was lying through his teeth the entire time.
“You said your name was Park Jimin, right?” Seokjin had asked with a gentle grin, and for a moment Jeongguk forgot that this guy was probably a prevaricating scammer.
“Yep, that’s me. Jimin. Park Jimin.”
“Okay then, why don’t we get started?,” Seokjin begins, pulling out an ornate velvet-covered box and carefully removing a crystal ball from it. He places the glass sphere on the frankly quite precarious-looking stand at the center of the table, and stares at Jeongguk expectantly. After a few more moments of awkward silence, Seokjin prompts him.
“So? What would you like to know?”
“Oh! Um, I guess I was curious about stuff like career success, and maybe, uh, the relationship department?” Jeongguk blurts, internally hitting himself for asking the two most obvious questions for fortune-tellers. Damn his panicked virgo brain. He was supposed to ask for specifics, enough to make Seokjin seem taken aback, and finally prove him wrong.
“Okay, let’s start with career stuff. Can I ask you a few questions first?” Jeongguk blinks.
“I… I thought you would be able to predict all that stuff. You know. Like, isn’t that your job?”
“...Yes, but I need something to go off of, or I’ll just get inundated with too much information about you, most of which is probably both irrelevant to what you actually want to know and also impossible to parse,” Seokjin says slowly, his lips slowly curving into a bit of a frown.
“Right, right, sorry. I’ve never been to one of these places before. I was recommended by one of your customers - a Minatozaki Sana?” Upon the mention of the name, Seokjin’s face brightens.
“Ah, yes, Sana, she’s a regular, I love her!” he says with a genuine smile, causing Jeongguk to I’m honored by the recommendation. Anyways, let’s go ahead and get started.”
What had followed had been the strangest thirty minutes of Jeongguk’s life. It had consisted of Seokjin completing way too many of Jeongguk’s sentences, often times eerily enough to make Jeongguk second-guess himself. But then he would remember that this guy was a professional for sure - a professional scammer. He had probably just noticed that he had a really good intuition and decided to capitalize on it (and on innocent gullible folks, much to Jeongguk’s chagrin), but even that explanation seemed a little too rational for the unbelievable amount of accuracy that Seokjin had been hitting.
“You used to be a singer, right? Competed on a music show, almost got scouted?” Seokjin asks with a bit of a smug smile, staring into the crystal ball intently.
“Whoa, how did you know that?” The cliché words spill from Jeongguk’s mouth before he can reign them in and he flushes deeply. “I mean, what does that have to do with my future?”
“Hmm… It looks like someone is going to notice your talents sometime soon and offer you some kind of gig. I think it would be wise to take it, Jimin.”
Jeongguk stares blankly for a moment before he starts a bit. Right, Jimin. That's him. He's Jimin. And this guy is a scammer. Good thing he caught himself before he too got caught up in it all. ('It all' being Seokjin's lying abilities, and nothing else, of course.)
“Is that you talking or the crystal ball?”
“A little bit of both,” Seokjin says with a disarmingly sweet smile. Jeongguk is stunned for a moment.
“O-oh. Thanks,” he says, briefly forgetting his mission as his lips quirk up in return. Feeling strangely shy, Jeongguk’s hands fidget for a moment before another question pops up into his mind.
“I’m actually working on this article for work right now, one that I think could really break down the topic it’s on. Is there any way you could find out if it’s a worthwhile endeavor?”
“Well, let’s take a look!” Seokjin replies, scooting a bit closer to the little table.
Actually excited, Jeongguk scoots forward too, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table.
Except it takes about a split second for him to immediately regret it.
Stricken with horrified eyes, the two of them merely watch as the crystal ball wobbles precariously on its gold stand before rolling dramatically off the edge of the table before either of them can even react, tumbling to the floor with a great crash. Somehow, it doesn’t shatter into a million pieces, but instead there’s this gnarly-looking crack that almost goes right through the center. (Not to mention the noticeable dent on the floor.)
“Oh my god, I am so sorry!” Jeongguk apologizes, wide-eyed and frantic. Reaching for the crystal ball, he almost falls out of his chair but Seokjin’s hand catches him by the upper arm and silently helps him regain balance.
Then, reaching down and picking up the crystal ball with trembling hands, Seokjin just stares at it blankly, eerily silent for a long moment.
“Fuck,” he finally says when he speaks, then flushes. Jeongguk merely raises his eyebrows. “I mean, it’s alright, I’m so sorry for the inconvenience, it should have been better-secured,” Seokjin manages, voice polite but slightly clipped. “Let me just go to our back room and get my, er, backup crystal.”
“There’s a backup?” Jeongguk asks, surprised. “Does it work as well as this one? Isn’t this one the special one? Wait, oh my god, I should be offering to repay you,” he blurts out all at once before reaching back and pulling out his wallet.
“Oh, don’t worry, that won’t be necessary, it should be fine! I’ll take care of it in a jiffy. Please wait here a moment, Jimin, I’ll be right back.”
And with that Seokjin disappears behind the curtain, leaving a distressed Jeongguk in his wake.